Norway's Radiumhospitalet has been rocked
by a research scandal that may threaten its credibility.
PHOTO: INGAR
STORFJELL
Health Minister Sylvia Brustad is expected
to pay more attention now to proposals aimed at thwarting research
cheats.
PHOTO: JARL FR.
ERICHSEN/SCANPIX
|
Newspaper Aftenposten
reported Monday that a commission led by medical professor Magne
Nylenna of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in
Trondheim submitted its findings to the state Ministry of Health in
December 2004. Commission proposals included a call for jail terms of
up to one year for anyone caught forging medical research.
"We're surprised that
nothing more has been done with this proposal," Nylenna told Aftenposten.
New Health Minister Sylvia Brustad said the commission's work will now
be re-evaluated, adding that "there's a need for new regulation in this
area."
Brustad was calling in
top health officials for a meeting on Monday, after it emerged last
week that an otherwise respected health professional who's a doctor,
dentist and researcher at Norway's Rikshospitalet-Radiumhospitalet had
faked an article in the respected publication The Lancet. The
44-year-old researcher, whom Aftenposten and several other
Norwegian media outlets have chosen not to identify, has admitted to
fabricating what he claimed was a survey of more than 400 patients.
The survey allegedly
involved falsification of the death- and birthdates and illnesses of
454 "patients." The researcher wrote that his survey indicated that use
of pain medication such as Ibuprofen had a positive effect on cancers
of the mouth. He's now admitted the survey was fabricated and
reportedly is cooperating with an investigation into all his research.
The research scandal has
shocked officials at Rikshospitalet-Radiumhospitalet in Oslo (Norway's
newly merged National Hospital and major cancer hospital) and left them
worried that such an embarrassment will prompt international partners
to withdraw research funds.
Newspaper Dagens
Næringsliv reported Monday, however, that the MD Cancer Center in
Houston won't end its cooperation with Rikshospitalet-Radiumhospitalet
because of the researcher's fabrication. A spokeswoman for the National
Cancer Institute in the US declined immediate comment on whether the
scandal will have any consequences for its support of Norwegian
research.
The researcher who's
admitted to the fabrication has published nearly 40 articles in such
prestigious journals as The Lancet and The New England
Journal of Medicine, which had boosted his own profile both in
Norway and abroad. Questions now are being raised about the validity of
his earlier work, and a commission led by Anders Ekbom of the
Karolinska Hospital in Stockholm will lead an investigation into it.
The researcher's colleagues are also being questioned.
The editor of the respected
magazine, The Lancet, in which the fabricated article was
published, calls the fraud "the worst the research world has seen."
Richard Horton told Oslo
newspaper Aftenposten that he also can't understand how the
Oslo doctor's 13 co-authors and colleagues on the fraudulent cancer
research project could have been duped as well.
Horton claims at least six of
the doctor's co-authors corresponded with The Lancet, and were
highly involved with the substance of the article. He says it's
incomprehensible that none of them realized that the article contained
serious flaws.
In fact, an entire cancer
patient survey on which the article hinged was fabricated. The doctor
at the core of the fraud, now being publicly identified in Norway as
Jon Sudbø, has admitted the fabrication and is now on sick leave.
There's little question that
Sudbø has unleased a research scandal that's shaken the research world
both in Norway and abroad. Some of the world's leading cancer experts
in the US were involved with his project and his resulting article,
along with medical colleagues in Oslo. Now most of them are being
questioned, and are questioning themselves.
One of them, ear-nose-throat
specialist Jon Mork, told Aftenposten he thought Sudbø's work
on cancers of the mouth was solid until Sudbø himself admitted he'd
fabricated research data. "When you're presented with material that an
acknowledged and established colleague has worked on together with the
world's foremost professors in the area, I'm at least not the type to
doubt it," Mork said.
Now he and many others are
prepared to answer questions from a commission set up to investigate
the scandal. Norway's ministers of health and education made it clear
on Monday that the credibility of the country's entire research
community is at stake.
Research scandal will be
investigated
The
Oslo and Akershus County Medical Officer will establish an
investigation of researcher Jon Sudbø and the
Rikshospitalet-Radiumhospitalet Health Trust.
This indicates that both Sudbø,
who admitted fabricating data used in a study of pain-killers published
in The Lancet, and the Hospital group can face further probes,
newspaper VG reported on its web site.
Sudbø's co-authors are currently
not facing an investigation. The scandal has attracted international
attention and has been branded perhaps the worst of its sort ever
attempted.
Norwegian media reported
Wednesday that an adviser with pharmaceutical giant Pfizer had the
original idea for the study that resulted in the fraud attempt, but
Pfizer said that though the adviser in question did have ties to
Pfizer, there was no connection between the company and the fraudulent
study.
Swedish epidemiologist Anders
Ekbom of Stockholm's Karolinska Institute came to Oslo to lead the
investigative committee that the Rikshospitalet-Radiumhospitalet has
established in the wake of the scandal.
According to the hospital's
strategy director Stein Vaaler the result of the investigation will
take at least a couple of months.
http://www.aftenposten.no/english/local/article1200016.ece
